


As A Shrike To Your Sharp And Glorious Thorn

by Theyna_Shipper



Series: Star Wars One-Shots [40]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: "SLOW" burn, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Angst, Animals, Curses, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Fluffy, Hawthorn Tree, Inspired by a Hozier Song, Nymphs & Dryads, Shrike - Freeform, Witches, soft, yes it's BOTH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28886253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theyna_Shipper/pseuds/Theyna_Shipper
Summary: When the starving peasants stormed Palpatine’s castle, angry at having their food and land stolen, the princess refused to fight them though her blade was sharper than any of their pitchforks.The king, in his rage, used his magic to transform the princess, so that she would always have her beautiful song but always have need of the blade she refused to use.A shrike bird, the one that impales her prey upon sharpest thorns, so that all the blood she refused to shed before she would now have to feast upon.She would remain in  the form of a shrike bird, with her beautiful beak and sharpest spines, until she found true love, be it a year or a thousand years.Because no one could ever fall in love with a bird, could they?And that, say most, is where the story ends. But that’s not a proper fairy tale, not the good kind with a happily-ever-after, or a kiss, or a fairy godmother.Fortunately for us, though, there’s a love story, if we’re willing to wait a few hundred years.Rey is a princess cursed into the form of a shrike. Ben is the nymph of a hawthorn tree.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Star Wars One-Shots [40]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1637683
Comments: 5
Kudos: 55





	As A Shrike To Your Sharp And Glorious Thorn

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic inspired by the Hozier song "Shrike". I wanted to take the metaphor of the romance of the shrike and the thorn and make it literal. I'd recommend listening to the song. 
> 
> CW: The shrike is a carnivorous bird that kills its prey rather brutally. I avoid describing it graphically but I do do it accurately. Still, if you do not want to read violence towards animals I have marked these descriptions between *'s. 
> 
> CW: Illness, fire. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!

The story has been told in many different ways, first around the village, then farther across the world as their families leave the village and tell their stories to others. 

Once, Rey traveled as far as London and heard the story shared in a coffee shop there, but the journey was hard on her little wings and she could go no further. And although the spikes on the roofs were quite useful to her she eventually returned home. 

You see, the story goes like this: 

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away, there was a king. And that king had a granddaughter, and that granddaughter had a voice more beautiful than any songbird and a blade more deadly than any knight. 

And the king’s castle was surrounded by a forest, a forest filled with trees and squirrels and birds, but also with fairies and sprites and nymphs. The nymphs lived in the trees and took care of them, and in return the trees gave them life for as long as their roots remained in solid Earth. 

Ben was just a sapling hawthorn when he first met the princess, listening to her beautiful song as she strolled through the woods. 

She paused at the hawthorn long enough to pluck a few berries and pop them in her mouth– the first tender, spring berries. It does not hurt him– berries were meant to be eaten, and as long as his bark remains untouched he will be just fine. 

“Maz says there’s magic in these trees,” she remarks to him as she snacks on the berries. Maz is the village healer, though some call her a witch. She has no family, and no one seems to remember quite when she came to the village. “But I suppose you wouldn’t tell me if you had any, hm?” 

No, he would not tell her; though she is sweet and kind he must not reveal the truth to anyone. 

And besides, Maz warned the trees that there is trouble coming to the castle soon and the woods must remain strong or else something terrible will happen. 

So he lets the princess take his berries and listen to her song, but stays rooted in the ground. 

But this isn’t the part of the story most people know: they know the part a few years later where the starving peasants stormed Palpatine’s castle, angry at having their food and land stolen. They know the part where the princess refused to fight them though her blade was sharper than any of their pitchforks. 

And they know the part where the king, in his rage, used the last of his magic to transform the princess, so that she would always have her beautiful song but always have need of the blade she refused to use. 

They know he turned her into a shrike bird, the one that *impales her prey upon sharpest thorns, so that all the blood she refused to shed before she would now have to feast upon. *

But as with every curse it came with a caveat: she would remain in the form of a shrike bird, with her beautiful beak and sharpest spines, until she found true love, be it a year or a thousand years. 

Because no one could ever fall in love with a bird, could they? 

And that, say most, is where the story ends. But that’s not a proper fairy tale, not the good kind with a happily-ever-after, or a kiss, or a fairy godmother. 

Fortunately for us, though, there’s a love story, if we’re willing to wait a few hundred years.

* * *

At first Rey fled to the woods she had known, and lurked among the trees, and watched the other birds hunt and skewer their prey on the sharpest branches. 

She can feel the magic of the forests now, can see the nymphs flitting about the trees. She’s a part of it now, she supposes, the magic of the place, but it is small comfort. 

Ben watches, and he’s a growing tree now, somewhere between a sapling and a grown tree, and it saddens him to watch the beautiful bird try to choke down the sweet hawthorn berries, only to have her stomach reject them. She can’t enjoy this anymore. Her grandfather made sure she would only crave flesh. 

She cannot stay in her woods. She knows every frog and mouse and fish, and cannot bring herself to kill or eat them. 

So she decides to wander the country, learning how to live like this and adapt to changing climates. *She learns how to hunt, pulling mice that would otherwise ruin the harvest out of grain silos, to skin and eat the poisonous toads that could pollute the springs. She learns to break their necks in one quick shake of her head so they do not suffer, and then pin them down to eat on the spines of trees. (Often a hawthorn tree, like the ones she used to eat berries from.) *

It is a long time before she can even think of returning home, the pain is still too raw. It must be a couple hundred years, she thinks, long after the gulls on the ships start coming back from far away places like _America._ Though time doesn’t pass quite the same anymore for her. 

No, she does not come back until she feels a horrible wrenching in her gut, like a thousand voices crying out in pain, and she knows something horrible must have happened to their forest. 

Flying as fast as her tiny wings can carry her, she only makes it back to the forest when the trees are all burned to the ground, and only a single hawthorn still stands. 

It’s the same tree as before, somehow, all grown now, but alone, so alone. 

She decides that she cannot leave it so alone, and makes her home here now, resting herself in its branches, keeping her meals fresh on its spines. 

She never sees the nymph come out anymore. Perhaps he didn’t even survive the fire, but no, she thinks he did. She can still feel his warmth inside the tree. 

Maybe someday, he will come out again. 

After a little while Maz (and of course she’s still alive, she’s no mortal that Rey knows of) comes and builds a little cottage around the hawthorn tree and takes care of him. 

And after a little while she starts to recognize Rey, and takes care of her too, letting the bird that others call the ‘butcher bird’ alight on her shoulder and sing her beautiful songs. 

She sings for the hawthorn, too. 

She hopes he likes it.

* * *

Ben misses the shrike when she leaves, and thinks of her often. But he grows up in the forest, and for a while all is well, and his tree grows tall and strong. The people of the village still eat berries from their trees and the birds still nest in their boughs. 

But then the forest is ravaged and he is the last left alive. 

He goes dormant inside his tree to protect himself from the fire, and keeps himself sealed inside long after it has passed. 

There is no reason for him to come out. He is alone now, so desperately alone. 

He will come out, he tells himself, when he finds someone worth spending what remains of his life with. 

But there’s no way he’ll find them as a tree, is there?

After a while (he does not know quite how long it is, time has never been quite that way for him) the little shrike returns. 

She is different now, older, and he does not recognize her right away. But there’s a wisdom in her eyes that recalls what she was before, and a love and empathy that makes him want to protect her. 

He makes sure his branches are arranged to protect her from the cold, and *his thorns sharp to mount the bodies of her prey.*

He listens to her beautiful song and offers her all he can give, even in his current state. 

He takes care of her as best he can.

* * *

And she takes care of him too: *for her prey, now she takes the flea-ridden rats from the town, the bugs from the forest floor, or else the squirrels that would eat away his branches and hurt him. 

And once she sees a woodpecker, much larger than herself, drilling into his bark and she flies at it in a rage, pecking and clawing and fighting until she is certain it will not return to the tree. *

_I’ll keep you safe,_ she croons softly to the tree. 

Maybe this could be love, Rey thinks. But not like this, not so long as they are like this. 

Maz hangs a birdhouse in the tree for her, and it is a good place to keep herself warm in the winter, though it is a lonely place with no nest for her to fill. 

Sometimes, Ben thinks, he would leave the tree and start a life. The world is different now and he thinks maybe he could be happy. But not, he thinks, so long as he is alone. 

And who would take care of the little bird? 

So they nurture and take care of each other like this for a long time, perhaps another few hundred years, and Maz cares for them too, and no one in the town that springs up around them never quite knows how long the old woman and her bird and her tree had been there. 

And then one day Maz stops coming. 

Rey immediately knows something is wrong, it takes Ben longer to notice. Peering in the window, she sees that the woman is sick on her bed. She has no one to bring her food or water. 

Rey knows she must do something. Maz has done so much for her, she cannot leave her alone. But what can she do in this form? 

Well, humans don’t seem to like mice as much, but she can catch a fish out of a shallow pond… but she needs to cook it too… and she can’t get in the house. 

Rapidly growing desperate, she suddenly has an idea: and she doesn’t know what she expects him to do, but flying to the hawthorn she begins to chirp and scream and flap her wings until he notices.

* * *

And Ben sees the shrike flapping her wings and singing in desperation, and he’s known her for so long that somehow he immediately understands. 

Maz is in trouble, and she needs them. And Ben knows that this is the time he must come out of the tree– any other plan he may have had vanishes when he knows she is in trouble. 

And the little bird needs him too. 

For the first time in hundreds of years, he emerges from the tree. 

The bird alights gently on his shoulder as he walks inside, nuzzling the dark hair that falls around his shoulder. 

“Hello, beautiful,” he croons softly in a hoarse voice that has not been used in a long time. 

She chirps eagerly in reply and flies onto a counter she has seen Maz use to cook, dropping her fish and gesturing. 

“Ok, sweetheart,” says, gently stroking her head, “But we’re doing this together, okay?”

* * *

And Rey is so struck, so touched, as she realizes that the years they’ve spent together has broken her curse. 

And the next thing she knows she is lying on the floor in her human form once more, naked all but for a thin fur cape, and the nymph staring at her as if he has seen daylight for the first time in his life. 

Rey quickly covers herself in the furs and stands up. 

“You…” she whispers softly to the nymph, suddenly realizing that she does not even know his name, nor he hers. 

Ben stares at her in awe. “You’re… I always thought, I always saw it… but I didn’t know if…” 

“I’m Rey,” she says suddenly. “My grandfather placed a curse on me, turned me into a bird… you know that don’t you?” She taps her foot anxiously. “...but even after, you always made me feel safe.” 

“Ben,” he replies quickly “And you…” There’s no way to put what he’s feeling into words. “You’re… amazing.” 

Rey could quickly become lost in this, in hearing his voice and getting to be near him as a person. But then she remembers why they are here, and turns toward the bedroom. 

“We need to help Maz.” 

Together, they go to her bed, and check her over. She’s asleep, feverish, and her breathing is labored, but they’ve watched her for a few hundred years and know their own things about healing by now. 

With a rhythm as if they’ve known each other their whole lives, they set to work.

* * *

Maz wakes up to see two people huddled together near her bed, and while she doesn’t know them, she _knows_ them. 

“I was wondering when you two would finally figure things out,” she remarks. 

“You’re okay,” Rey says with relief. “How are you feeling?” 

“Much better, thank you.” She never gets sick– quite embarrassing, really, but if it got these two to their feet she supposes it’s worth it. 

Ben has his arm around Rey, much to Maz’s relief, and both of them look confused but please with the situation. 

“I hope you two are planning on staying here?” 

Rey looks at Ben, and Ben looks at Rey, and they both look at Maz and nod. 

Well, they’ve nowhere else to go, and only two people they know, and a whole new world to figure out. 

But Ben and Rey, the shrike and the thorn, know they’ll be just fine so long as they have each other. 

So the story ends like this: 

Rey and Ben stay in Maz’s cottage, needing to keep Ben near his tree. No one in the town ever knows quite what to make of the one who is far too good at gardening and gets along so well with the other who has a strange taste for hawthorn berries and raw fish, and sings with the voice of an angel. 

Oh, and one more thing: 

_They lived happily ever after._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please kudo and comment, I had a lot of fun writing. And thank you to my great beta :)


End file.
